As a columnist for the New York Times Mr. Brooks writes two essays a week,regularly appears on television and writes books like ‘The Social Animal’, that reads like it was written by a Sociologist, who kept his manuscript hidden, because he lacked the talent and moral imagination of a fiction writer.
But the very notion of this intellectual poser, being a ‘Right Hegelian’ is ludicrous. Mr. Brooks scours a whole host of fields of inquiry, for plausible rhetorical frames for his chatter. But Hegel is beyond his ken, his intelligence, his comprehension. Mr. Brooks is a borrower, out of the necessity, of meeting his deadlines and maintaining his newly claimed status as an American Prophet.

But never fear, Mr. James McElroy makes Brooks seem like more that he is. Brooks is the protege of the Wm. F. Buckley Jr. , who looked and sounded like he stepped out of the pages of Evelyn Waugh. While Brooks looks and sounds like he stepped from the pages of the long forgotten American classic ‘The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit’ . A fable about the Post-War children of The Depression, and their long hard climb to mediocrity.

Mr. McElroy dresses up Mr. Brooks in the ill fitting tuxedo of ‘Right Hegelian’, when his natural garb is Brooks Brothers grey flannel.